Meanwhile...

As you bemusedly watch the parasitized paladin (Parapal for short) gleefully slaying that insufferable tutorial npc over and over again, your attention is drawn by an oozing presence in a far off land. Navigating the distance in an instant, as though turning a page, you find yourself peering into a decrepit sewer tunnel. It's pitch black, which of course does nothing to hinder your vision: the crumbling tunnel is filled with knee-high sludge that has long since lost its putrid stench and the surface of the liquid is deceptively still.

You know better, for you can feel the squirming mass of bane-worms under the surface. Whereas the morphworm was a highly sentient, singular being, the bane-worms as a swarm were more like a rogue limb of your own body: you could feel them (in a way you were them) and they coordinated their efforts through your essence. If you had just a Fraction of power you could directly control them...but as of yet you could only observe. Bane-worms were feared, rightly so, by most heroes due to their overwhelming numbers and love of warm, moist places where they could breed. They'd been called an "Eldritch Plague" sent by forgotten gods (you) to torment mankind. Many a hero would outright refuse to even approach a dungeon if there was a rumor of bane-worms lurking within. You knew for a fact that a major selling point for most servers was a global ban on bane-worm spawns, something that was easier said than done considering their tendency to "tag along" with heroes when they traversed the aether.

And that's why you loved them. They were just so...You. Vile and corruptive, they had a way of bringing the mighty down to your level: writhing in the muck with the vermin. The difference was that you liked it there.

As you reminisce about the nature of your children you pick up on a slight tremor echoing through the blackness. The sound is weirdly distorted and muffled by the water and the bane-worms sub-optimal senses but you immediately recognize it: footsteps.